They refer to me as the LinkedIn Guy in our office. I don’t make any cold calls at all. I haven’t made a cold call in over 5 years. In our industry that’s been kind of a no-no. It’s still somewhat smile and dial, but I think it’s slowly changing. Social selling has allowed me to get in doors that I would have never got to before. I’ve sold tickets to two of the six billionaires in Austin. Those people would not have taken my phone calls, or their executive assistants would have blocked me from getting into those doors. It opens up an entirely different world that you’ll never get into by phone call.
Clip: Allen Schlesinger – Sales Differentiators: Persistence, Hard Work and Building Relationships
There’s a few things that have really helped me set myself apart. One is persistence. I probably don’t know what the word ‘no’ means. I’ll follow-up on numerous occasions. I utilize texting quite a bit to touch base with people. Then the other thing is working harder than everybody else. I’m in the office every morning at 7:30 with my coffee. Starting my day that way just to get ahead of everybody else and have that hour to myself where I’m just focused. The last thing is really building relationships. I really try to build friendships with all my clients where I’m not just hanging out with them at our games. I’m also hanging out with them socially. Whether it’s my wife and I or them and their wife. Stuff like that.
Episode 21: Social Selling his way to the top of the NBA Development League – Allen Schlesinger of the Austin Spurs
Allen Schlesinger — Social Selling
You don’t need cold calls if you sell on social.
Allen Schlesinger is the Premium Sales Manager for the Austin Spurs. He has been the #1 seller in all of the NBA Development League (NBA G League) for the last four years consecutively. Allen started off with no experience in sales, and has risen to become one of the top sellers in his industry — and he hasn’t made a cold call in five years! Allen uses social selling on Continue Reading …
Clip: Barry Womack – Listen to Yourself and Get Feedback
Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:
I think one of the biggest things is listen to yourself and take feedback. Even today, 7 years into my sales career I always ask for feedback. I ask for feedback from my customers, my prospects, especially the ones I feel like I have a good relationship with. I’ll always ask for feedback. What did you think? How did we do as a team? Also ask your colleagues. Ask your executives and people that are involved in these conversations that you have. So just ask for that feedback and I think you’ll find that people are very willing to give it and are there to actively help you improve. I’m a big advocate of listening to yourself so I record almost every meeting, demonstration that I do on WebEx. So I’ll fire it up, I’ll always ask for permission from the customer and kind of use it as a… I’ll send this over to you afterwards and you can share it with colleagues or what have you, but it’s really also a great opportunity for me to go back and listen to the conversations that I’m having. See how I sound. See what I can improve on. Help with objections as they come up. If I don’t like how i respond to something. Come up with a way to know how to respond to that better the next time.
Clip: Barry Womack on Qualifying Sales Opportunities
Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:
I think also, just kind of learning or deciding when customers or prospects are worth your time. I don’t think everybody’s created equal. Obviously you want to have as much opportunity as you possible can when speaking to customers or prospects. But it’s important to start figuring out when you should disqualify somebody and stop the conversation. I think is equally as important as continuing down a path that ultimately ends up in failure. So that was another big thing that was tough for me I think to pick up early on as you get excited with these conversations you have. New opportunities, and you want to take it to the end and there’s probably some white flags that you probably could have identified.
Clip: Sales is a Learned Skill – Barry Womack
Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:
I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned was that sales is really I think a learned skill. I think maybe I even came into sales thinking that people were just naturals. You had to be just a great smooth talker, and I think I learned pretty quickly that sales is something you can learn. Sales is something you have to learn. It’s something you practice. Something you have to have a lot of patience with, but at the end of the day it is a learned skill. So I think that was one of the biggest lessons that I’ve had to learn on my side to be successful.
Clip: Barry Womack on his Cold Calling Mind Shift
Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:
I think maybe one thing that the average sales rep would believe is that, and I think I’m guilty and maybe a lot of people are guilty of this especially earlier on. Is thinking that when I cold call somebody or I have a discussion or I call somebody out of the blue. That I might be bugging them or annoying them. I think it’s easy to think that especially early on in your career. I think you really have to have a mind shift, and I think I’ve had a big mind shift over the years where I truly believe that when I’m speaking with my customers. When I call somebody out of the blue. That I have value to provide and that they could benefit from having a conversation with me and benefit from leveraging our platform. I think that’s one thing an average rep could think is that I’m calling somebody out of the blue. I’m bugging them. When really it should be a mind shift of you should want to talk to me and you’ll get value from it and benefit from having a conversation.
Clip: Cvent’s Barry Womack on Acting as a Consultant and Selling Yourself
Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:
One thing that I try to do is really act like a consultant or mimic a consultant approach where one of the first things you need to do, especially as an introduction to a new customer, a new prospect. Is to really sell yourself. Separate yourself as a sales rep, and when I say sell yourself. Talk about your experience. So my experience in the industry. Talk about the successes that I’ve had with other customers. So I think a consultant has to sell them self first to really convince the customer that there’s value I can provide and value that you can receive from working with me. So I try to take that approach and then obviously the second part of that is really just listening. A consultant is going to have to listen to current pain points, challenges that that customer has and the final stage is to be able to propose a solution.
Clip: Barry Womack talks Time Management and Time Blocking
Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:
Definitely use the calendar to block off time. I think it’s easy, especially if you need to make phone calls during the day. It’s easy to get distracted with emails that are coming in. Customer are blowing you up about something. So it’s easy to kind of drop the phone calls that you need to make to respond and get back to people. I think to work effectively and efficiently you need to focus on the task at hand. I try to use my calendar to block off time slots where I can really focus on what I need to get done. A lot of what we do is long-term strategic type pricing, or working with marketing to customize a presentation for one customer that we’re going to in a couple weeks. So a lot of these are really time management and making the time to prepare for something that might still be a little ways off. So I think being able to block it off on your calendar is for me the most effective way to get that done.
Clip: Barry Womack on Staying Organized While Traveling
Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:
I typically try to structure travel. Obviously they’ll stem from in-person meetings that we need to schedule. So a lot of times these are quick hit trips, one nighters. So we’re going to visit a customer. Have a quarterly business review or success review with our customers or maybe it’s meeting with brand new prospective customers. We’re going out to meet face to face, present our solution, things of that nature. A lot of different types of in-person meetings that we do, but we try to meet with our customers face to face as much as possible. For me it’s really just about trying to stay as organized as possible and still be productive while I’m on the road. I live and die by my calendar. So really just having everything built out there. From things that I need to do on a personal level. Things that I need to do from a business perspective. Even mapping out when I should take time to send out emails versus make phone calls. So I try to live and breathe by the calendar so that I’m staying organized. I take notes in my calendar integrated to Evernote. So that I have everything and can follow up as quickly and productively as I can.
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